Considering that “final cause is pronounced a chimera, and the First Great
Cause is remanded to the sphere of the Unknown,” as a reverend gentleman
justly complains, the number of hypotheses put forward, a nebula of them,
is most remarkable. The profane student is perplexed, and does not know in
which of the theories of _exact_ Science he has to believe. We give below
hypotheses enough for every taste and power of brain. They are all
extracted from a number of scientific volumes.
Current Hypotheses explaining the Origin of Rotation.
Rotation has originated:
(_a_) By the collision of nebular masses wandering aimlessly in Space; or
by attraction, “in cases where no actual impact takes place.”
(_b_) By the tangential action of currents of nebulous matter (in the case
of an amorphous nebula) descending from higher to lower levels,(833) or
simply by the action of the central gravity of the mass.(834)
“It is a fundamental principle in physics that _no rotation could be
generated in such a mass by the action of its own parts_. As well attempt
to change the course of a steamer by pulling at the deck railing,” remarks
on this Prof. Winchell in _World‐Life_.(835)
Hypotheses of the Origin of Planets and Comets.
(_a_) We owe the birth of the planets (1) to an explosion of the Sun—a
parturition of its central mass;(836) or (2) to some kind of disruption of
the nebular rings.
(_b_) “The comets are strangers to the planetary system.”(837) “The comets
are undeniably generated in our solar system.”(838)
(_c_) The “_fixed_ stars are motionless,” says one authority. “All the
stars are actually in motion,” answers another authority. “Undoubtedly
every star is in motion.”(839)
(_d_) “For over 350,000,000 years, the slow and majestic movement of the
sun around its axis has never for a moment ceased.”(840)
(_e_) “Maedler believes that ... our sun has Alcyone in the Pleiades for
the centre of its orbit, and consumes 180,000,000 of years in completing a
single revolution.”(841)
(_f_) “The sun has existed no more than 15,000,000 of years, and will emit
heat for no longer than 10,000,000 years more.”(842)
A few years ago this eminent Scientist was telling the world that the time
required for the Earth to cool from incipient incrustation to its present
state, could not exceed 80,000,000 years.(843) the encrusted age of the
world is only 40,000,000, or half the duration once allowed, and the Sun’s
age is only 15,000,000, have we to understand that the Earth was at one
time independent of the Sun?
Since the ages of the Sun, of the planets, and of the Earth, as they are
stated in the various scientific hypotheses of the Astronomers and
Physicists, are given elsewhere below, we have said enough to show the
disagreement between the ministers of Modern Science. Whether we accept
the _fifteen_ million years of Sir William Thomson or the _thousand_
millions of Mr. Huxley, for the rotational evolution of our Solar System,
it will always come to this; that by accepting self‐generated rotation for
the heavenly bodies composed of inert Matter and yet moved by their own
internal motion, for millions of years, this teaching of Science amounts
to:
(_a_) An evident denial of that fundamental physical law, which states
that “a body in motion tends constantly to inertia, _i.e._, to continue in
the same state of motion or rest, unless it is stimulated into further
action by a superior active force.”
(_b_) An original impulse, which culminates in an unalterable motion,
within a resisting Ether that Newton had declared incompatible with that
motion.
(_c_) Universal gravity, which, we are taught, always tends to a centre in
rectilinear descent—alone the cause of the revolution of the whole Solar
System, which is performing an eternal double gyration, each body around
its axis and orbit. Another occasional version is:
(_d_) A magnet in the Sun; or, that the said revolution is due to a
magnetic force, which acts, just as gravitation does, in a straight line,
and varies inversely as the square of the distance.(844)
(_e_) The whole acting under invariable and changeless laws, which are,
nevertheless, often shown variable, as during some well‐known freaks of
planets and other bodies, as also when the comets approach or recede from
the Sun.
(_f_) A Motor Force always proportionate to the mass it is acting upon;
but independent of the specific nature of that mass, to which it is
proportionate; which amounts to saying, as Le Couturier does, that:
Without that force independent from, and of quite another nature
than, the said mass, the latter, were it as huge as Saturn, or as
tiny as Ceres, would always fall with the same rapidity.(845)
A mass, furthermore, which derives its weight from the body on which it
weighs.
Thus neither Laplace’s perceptions of a solar atmospheric fluid, which
would extend beyond the orbits of the planets, nor Le Couturier’s
electricity, nor Foucault’s heat,(846) nor this, nor the other, can ever
help any of the numerous hypotheses about the origin and permanency of
rotation to escape from this squirrel’s wheel, any more than can the
theory of gravity itself. This mystery is the Procrustean bed of Physical
Science. If Matter is passive, as we are now taught, the simplest movement
cannot be said to be an essential property of Matter—the latter being
considered simply as an inert mass. How, then, can such a complicated
movement, compound and multiple, harmonious and equilibrated, lasting in
the eternities for millions and millions of years, be attributed simply to
its own inherent force, unless the latter is an Intelligence? A physical
will is something new—a conception that the Ancients would never have
entertained, indeed! For over a century all distinction between body and
force has been made away with. “Force is but the property of a body in
motion,” say the Physicists; “life—the property of our animal organs—is
but the result of their molecular arrangement,” answer the Physiologists.
As Littré teaches:
In the bosom of that aggregate which is named planet, are
developed all the forces immanent in matter ... _i.e._, that
matter possesses _in itself_ and _through itself_ the forces that
are proper to it ... and which are _primary_, not _secondary_.
Such forces are the property of weight, the property of
electricity, of terrestrial magnetism, the property of life....
Every planet can develop life ... as earth, for instance, which
had not always mankind on it, and now bears (_produit_) men.(847)
An Astronomer says:
We talk of the weight of the heavenly bodies, but since it is
recognized that weight decreases in proportion to the distance
from the centre, it becomes evident that, at a certain distance,
that weight must be forcibly reduced to zero. Were there any
_attraction_ there would be equilibrium.... And since the modern
school recognizes neither a _beneath_ nor an _above_ in universal
space, it is not clear what should cause the earth to fall, were
there even no gravitation, nor attraction.(848)
Methinks the Count de Maistre was right in solving the question in his own
theological way. He cuts the Gordian knot by saying:—“The planets rotate
because they are made to rotate ... and the modern physical system of the
universe is a physical impossibility.”(849) For did not Herschell say the
same thing when he remarked that there is a Will needed to impart a
circular motion, and another Will to restrain it?(850) This shows and
explains how a retarded planet is cunning enough to calculate its time so
well as to hit off its arrival at the fixed minute. For, if Science
sometimes succeeds, with great ingenuity, in explaining some of such
stoppages, retrograde motions, angles outside the orbits, etc., by
appearances resulting from the inequality of their progress and ours in
the course of our mutual and respective orbits, we still know that there
are others, and “very real and considerable deviations,” according to
Herschell, “which cannot be explained except by the mutual and irregular
action of those planets and by the perturbing influence of the sun.”
We understand, however, that there are, besides those little and
accidental perturbations, continuous perturbations called
“secular”—because of the extreme slowness with which the irregularity
increases and affects the relations of the elliptic movement—and that
these perturbations can be corrected. From Newton, who found that this
world needed repairing very often, down to Reynaud, all say the same. In
his _Ciel et Terre_, the latter says:
The orbits described by the planets are far from immutable, and
are, on the contrary, subject to a perpetual mutation in their
position and form.(851)
Proving gravitation and the peripatetic laws to be as negligent as they
are quick to repair their mistakes. The charge as it stands seems to be
that:
These orbits are alternately widening and narrowing, their great
axis lengthens and diminishes, or oscillates at the same time from
right to left around the sun, the plane itself, in which they are
situated, raising and lowering itself periodically while pivoting
around itself with a kind of tremor.
To this, De Mirville, who believes in intelligent “workmen” invisibly
ruling the Solar System—as we do—observes very wittily:
_Voilà, certes_, a voyage which has little in it of mechanical
precision; at the utmost, one could compare it to a steamer,
pulled to and fro and tossed on the waves, retarded or
accelerated, all and each of which impediments might put off its
arrival indefinitely, were there not the intelligence of a pilot
and engineers to catch up the time lost, and to repair the
damages.(852)
The law of gravity, however, seems to be becoming an obsolete law in
starry heaven. At any rate those long‐haired sidereal Radicals, called
comets, appear to be very poor respecters of the majesty of that law, and
to beard it quite impudently. Nevertheless, and though presenting in
nearly every respect “phenomena not yet fully understood,” comets and
meteors are credited by the believers in Modern Science with obeying the
same laws and consisting of the same Matter, “as the suns, stars and
nebulæ,” and even “the earth and its inhabitants.”(853)
This is what one might call taking things on trust, aye, even to blind
faith. But exact Science is not to be questioned, and he who rejects the
hypotheses imagined by her students—gravitation, for instance—would be
regarded as an ignorant fool for his pains; yet we are told by the just
cited author a queer legend from the scientific annals.
The comet of 1811 had a tail 120 millions of miles in length and
25 millions of miles in diameter at the widest part, while the
diameter of the nucleus was about 127,000 miles, more than ten
times that of the earth.
He tells us that:
In order that bodies of this magnitude, passing near the earth,
should not affect its motion or change the length of the year by
even a single second, their actual substance must be inconceivably
rare.
It must be so indeed, yet:
The extreme tenuity of a comet’s mass is also proved by the
phenomenon of the tail, which, as the comet approaches the sun, is
thrown out sometimes to a length of 90 millions of miles in a few
hours. And what is remarkable, this tail is thrown out against the
force of gravity by some repulsive force, probably electrical, so
that it always points away from the sun [!!!].... And yet, thin as
the matter of comets must be, it obeys the common Law of Gravity
[!?], and whether the comet revolves in an orbit within that of
the outer planets, or shoots off into the abysses of space, and
returns only after hundreds of years, its path is, at each
instant, regulated by the same force as that which causes an apple
to fall to the ground.(854)
Science is like Cæsar’s wife, and must not be suspected—this is evident.
But it can be respectfully criticized, nevertheless, and at all events, it
may be reminded that the “apple” is a dangerous fruit. For the second time
in the history of mankind, it may become the cause of the Fall—this time,
of “exact” Science. A comet whose tail defies the law of gravity right in
the Sun’s face can hardly be credited with obeying that law.
In a series of scientific works on Astronomy and the Nebular Theory,
written between 1865 and 1866, the present writer, a poor tyro in Science,
has counted in a few hours, no less than thirty‐nine contradictory
hypotheses offered as explanations for the self‐generated, primitive
rotatory motion of the heavenly bodies. The writer is no Astronomer, no
Mathematician, no Scientist; but she was obliged to examine these errors
in defence of Occultism, in general, and what is still more important, in
order to support the Occult Teachings concerning Astronomy and Cosmology.
Occultists were threatened with terrible penalties for questioning
scientific truths. But now they feel braver; Science is less secure in its
“impregnable” position than they were led to expect, and many of its
strongholds are built on very shifting sands.
Thus, even this poor and unscientific examination of it has been useful,
and it has certainly been very instructive. We have learned a good many
things, in fact, having especially studied with particular care those
astronomical data, that would be the most likely to clash with our
heterodox and “superstitious” beliefs.
Thus, for instance, we have found there, concerning gravitation, the axial
and orbital motions, that synchronous movement having been once overcome,
in the early stage, this was enough to originate a rotatory motion till
the end of Manvantara. We have also come to know, in all the aforesaid
combinations of possibilities with regard to incipient rotation, most
complicated in every case, some of the causes to which it may have been
due, as well as some others to which it ought and should have been due,
but, in some way or other, was not. Among other things, we are informed
that incipient rotation may be provoked with equal ease in a mass in
igneous fusion, and in one that is characterized by glacial opacity.(855)
That gravitation is a law which nothing can overcome, but which is,
nevertheless, overcome, in and out of season, by the most ordinary
celestial or terrestrial bodies—the tails of impudent comets, for
instance. That we owe the universe to the holy Creative Trinity, called
Inert Matter, Senseless Force and Blind Chance. Of the real essence and
nature of any of these three, Science knows nothing, but this is a
trifling detail. Ergo, we are told that, when a mass of cosmic or nebular
Matter—whose nature is entirely unknown, and which may be in a state of
fusion (Laplace), or dark and cold (Thomson), for “this intervention of
heat is itself a pure hypothesis” (Faye)—decides to exhibit its mechanical
energy under the form of rotation, it acts in this wise. It (the mass)
either bursts into spontaneous conflagration, or it remains inert,
tenebrous, and frigid, both states being equally capable of sending it,
without any adequate cause, spinning through Space for millions of years.
Its movements may be retrograde, or they may be direct, about a hundred
various reasons being offered for both motions, in about as many
hypotheses; anyhow, it joins the maze of stars, whose origin belongs to
the same miraculous and spontaneous order—for:
_The nebular theory does not profess to discover the_ ORIGIN _of
things, but only a stadium in material history._(856)
Those millions of suns, planets, and satellites, composed of inert matter,
will whirl on in most impressive and majestic symmetry round the
firmament, moved and guided only, notwithstanding their inertia, “by their
own internal motion.”
Shall we wonder, after this, if learned Mystics, pious Roman Catholics,
and even such learned Astronomers as were Chaubard and Godefroy,(857) have
preferred the _Kabalah_ and the ancient systems to the modern dreary and
contradictory exposition of the Universe? The _Zohar_ makes a distinction,
at any rate, between “the Hajaschar [the ‘Light Forces’], the Hachoser
[‘Reflected Lights’], and the simple _phenomenal exteriority_ of their
spiritual types.”(858)
The question of “gravity” may now be dismissed, and other hypotheses
examined. That Physical Science knows nothing of “Forces” is clear. We may
close the argument, however, by calling to our help one more man of
Science—Professor Jaumes, Member of the Academy of Medicine at
Montpellier. Says this learned man, speaking of Forces:
A cause is that which is essentially acting in the genealogy of
phenomena, in every production as in every modification. I said
that activity (or force) was invisible.... To suppose it corporeal
and _residing in the properties of matter_ would be a gratuitous
hypothesis.... To reduce all the causes to God, ... would amount
to embarrassing oneself with a hypothesis hostile to many
verities. But to speak of _a plurality of forces_ proceeding from
the Deity and possessing inherent powers of their own, is not
unreasonable, ... and I am disposed to admit phenomena produced by
intermediate agents called Forces or Secondary Agents. The
_distinction_ of Forces is the principle of the division of
Sciences; so many real and separate Forces, so many mother‐
Sciences.... No; Forces are not suppositions and abstractions, but
realities, and the only acting realities whose attributes can be
determined with the help of direct observation and induction.(859)